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M1918 BAR
The Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) was a family of American automatic rifles (or machine rifles) and light machine guns used by the United States and numerous other countries during the 20th century. The primary variant of the BAR series was the M1918, chambered for the .30-06 Springfield rifle cartridge and designed by John Browning in 1917 for the U.S. Expeditionary Corps in Europe as a replacement for the French-made Chauchat and M1909 Benet-Mercie machine guns. The BAR was designed to be carried by advancing infantrymen, slung over the shoulder and fired from the hip, a concept called "walking fire"—thought to be necessary for the individual soldier during trench warfare. However in practice, it was most often used as a light machine gun and fired from a bipod (introduced in later models). The original M1918 version was and remains the lightest machine gun to fire the .30-06 Springfield cartridge, though the limited capacity of its standard 20-round magazine tended to hamper its utility in that role. History The U.S. entered World War I with an inadequately small and obsolete assortment of various domestic and foreign machine gun designs, due primarily to bureaucratic indecision and the lack of an established military doctrine for their employment. When the declaration of war on Imperial Germany was announced on 6 April 1917, the military high command was made aware that to fight this machine gun-dominated trench war, they had on hand a mere 670 M1909 Benet-Mercies, 282 M1904 Maxims and 158 Colts, M1895. After much debate, it was finally agreed that a rapid rearmament with domestic weapons would be required, but until that time, U.S. troops would be issued whatever the French and British had to offer. The arms donated by the French were often second-rate or surplus and chambered in 8mm Lebel, further complicating logistics as machine gunners and infantrymen were issued different types of ammunition. Development In 1917, prior to America's entry to the war, John Browning personally brought to Washington, D.C. two types of automatic weapons for the purposes of demonstration: a water-cooled machine gun (later adopted as the M1917 Browning machine gun) and a shoulder-fired automatic rifle known then as the Browning Machine Rifle or BMR, both chambered for the standard U.S. .30-06 Springfield cartridge.1 Browning had arranged for a public demonstration of both weapons at a location outside of Washington, D.C. known as Congress Heights. There, on 27 February 1917, in front of a crowd of 300 people (including high-ranking military officials, Congressmen, Senators, foreign dignitaries and the press), Browning staged a live fire demonstration which so impressed the gathered crowd, that he was immediately awarded a contract for the weapon and it was hastily adopted into service (the water-cooled machine gun underwent further testing). Additional tests were conducted for U.S. Army Ordnance officials at Springfield Armory in May 1917 and both weapons were unanimously recommended for immediate adoption. In order to avoid confusion with the belt-fed M1917 machine gun, the BAR came to be known as the M1918 or Rifle, Caliber .30, Automatic, Browning, M1918 according to official nomenclature. On 16 July 1917, 12,000 BARs were duly ordered from Colt’s Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company who had secured an exclusive concession to manufacture the BAR under Browning's patents (Browning's US patent 1,293,022 was owned by Colt). However Colt was already producing at peak capacity (contracted to manufacture the Vickers machine gun for the British Army) and requested for a delay in production while they expanded their manufacturing output with a new facility in Meriden, Connecticut. Due to the urgent need for the weapon, the request was denied and the Winchester Repeating Arms Company (WRAC) was designated as the prime contractor. Winchester gave valuable assistance in refining the BAR's final design, correcting the drawings in preparation for mass production. Among the changes made, the ejection pattern was modified (spent casings were directed to the right side of the weapon—instead of straight up). Production Since work on the gun did not begin until February 1918, so hurried was the schedule at Winchester to bring the BAR into full production, that the first production batch of 1,800 guns was delivered out of spec; it was discovered that many components did not interchange between rifles and production was temporarily halted until manufacturing procedures were upgraded to bring the weapon up to specifications. The initial contract with Winchester called for 25,000 BARs. They were in full production by June 1918, delivering 4,000 guns and in July were turning out 9,000 units a month. Colt and Marlin-Rockwell Corp. also began production shortly after Winchester got into full production. Marlin-Rockwell, burdened by a contract to make rifles for the Belgian government, acquired the Mayo Radiator Co.'s factory and used it exclusively to carry out production of the BAR. The first unit from this source was delivered on 11 June 1918 and the company's peak output reached 200 automatic rifles per day. Colt only produced 9,000 BARs at the time of the armistice due to the heavy demands of previous orders. These three companies produced a combined daily output of 706 rifles and a total of approximately 52,000 BARs were delivered by all sources by the end of the war. Between 1918–1919, 102,125 BARs had been manufactured jointly by Colt (16,000 weapons), Winchester (47,123) and Marlin-Rockwell (39,002 units). By July 1918, the BAR began to arrive in France and the first unit to receive them was the U.S. Army’s 79th Infantry Division, which took them into action for the first time on 13 September 1918. The weapon was personally demonstrated against the enemy by 2nd Lieutenant Val Allen Browning, the inventor's son. Despite being introduced very late in the war, the BAR had made an impact disproportionate to its numbers; it was used extensively during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive and made a significant impression on the Allies (France alone requested 15,000 automatic rifles to replace their notoriously unreliable Chauchat machine rifle). Design Details The M1918 is a selective fire, air-cooled automatic rifle using a gas-operated long-stroke piston rod actuated by propellant gases bled through a vent in the barrel. The bolt is locked by a rising bolt lock. The gun fires from an open bolt. The spring-powered cartridge casing extractor is contained in the bolt and a fixed ejector is installed in the trigger group. The BAR is striker fired (the bolt carrier serves as the striker) and uses a trigger mechanism with a fire selector lever that enables operating in either semi-automatic or fully automatic firing modes. The selector lever is located on the left side of the receiver and is simultaneously the manual safety (selector lever in the "S" position – weapon is "safe", "F" – "Fire", "A" – "Automatic" fire). The "safe" setting blocks the trigger. The weapon’s barrel is screwed into the receiver and is not quickly detachable. The M1918 feeds using double-column 20-round box magazines, although 40-round magazines were also used in an anti-aircraft role; these were withdrawn from use in 1927. The M1918 has a cylindrical flash suppressor fitted to the muzzle end. The weapon was equipped with a fixed wooden buttstock and closed-type adjustable iron sights, consisting of a forward post and a rear leaf sight with 100 to 1,500 yard range graduations. Bayonets for the BAR were not manufactured in great quantity and are thus extremely rare. They consisted of a spike form with a slat on the top side, attaching to the bottom of the barrel in the conventional fashion. Variants During its lengthy service life, the BAR underwent continuous development, receiving many improvements and modifications. The first major attempt at improving the M1918 resulted in the M1922 light machine gun, adopted by the United States Cavalry in 1922. The weapon used a new heavy profile ribbed barrel, an adjustable spiked bipod (mounted to a swiveling collar on the barrel) with a rear, stock-mounted monopod, a side-mounted sling swivel and a new rear endplate, fixed to the stock retaining sleeve. The handguard was changed, and in 1926, the BAR's sights were redesigned to accommodate the heavy-bullet 172-grain M1 .30-06 ball ammunition then coming into service for machine gun use. The second significant modification of the M1918 was intended to increase the weapon's effectiveness and controllability firing in bursts and took place in 1937, which saw the introduction of the M1918A1 into U.S. Army inventories. Compared to the original M1918, the newer model includes a lightweight spiked bipod attached to the gas cylinder with a leg height adjustment feature and a new hinged steel butt plate. Relatively few M1918s were rebuilt to the new M1918A1 standard. In 1938–1939, work was begun on what would become the new M1918A2, accepted into service in 1940. One of the most important aspects of this modification involved removal of the semi-automatic firing capabilities of the weapon and using a rate-reducing buffer mechanism, activated by engaging the "F" position on the selector toggle. Furthermore, a new skid-footed bipod was fitted to the muzzle end of the barrel, magazine guides were added to the front of the trigger guard, the handguard was shortened, a heat shield was added to help the cooling process, a small monopod was hinged from and folded into the butt, and the weapon's role was changed to that of a squad light machine gun. The BAR's rear sight scales were also modified to accommodate the newly-standardized M2 Ball ammunition with its lighter flat-base bullet. In 1942, a fiberglass buttstock replaced the wood version, and late in the war, a barrel-mounted carrying handle was added. Initially, M1918A2s were obtained by converting older M1918 rifles (remaining in surplus) and a limited number of M1922s and M1918A1s; later, their production was undertaken at the New England Small Arms Corp. and International Business Machines Corp. (a total of 168,000 new weapons were manufactured). During the Korean War, production was again launched, this time contracted to the Royal McBee Typewriter Co. responsible for a further 61,000 M1918A2 light machine guns. The M1918A2 is an automatic weapon which uses a trigger and fire control mechanism that permits fully automatic fire only but with two variable rates of fire: a normal rate (500–650 rounds/min) and a reduced rate (300–450 rounds/min), achieved by engaging a device which reduces the weapon's cyclic rate of fire, installed inside the buttstock (together with the buffer). The safety and fire selector lever is placed on the left side of the trigger group and has three positions: "S" – weapon safe, "F" – automatic fire with a mechanically reduced rate and "A" – continuous fire at the normal cyclic rate. The weapon's barrel has a new slotted flash suppressor (introduced during the Korean War), an adjustable bipod, a fixed stock with a folding shoulder rest, carry handle and fully adjustable iron sights, with a post foresight and a leaf rear sight (can be adjusted with windage and elevation corrections) with an elevation ladder graduated from 100 to 1,600 yd and a notch for immediate firing up to 300 yd. Category:US Weapons Category:Automatic Rifle